


Inheritance

by wreathed



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Established Relationship, Ficlet, Incest, M/M, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-12
Updated: 2012-01-12
Packaged: 2017-10-29 10:21:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreathed/pseuds/wreathed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What the mother saw.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inheritance

They had never been that close a family. Their father had died _ever_ so tragically middle-aged, and she had always been an advocate of sons who were not so attatched to their mothers that they would sob when sent away to school. And these particular sons, her sons, had become so keenly self-sufficient from such a young age. Their efforts to outwit and out-taunt each other kept them occupied for hours, without the need of the housekeeper’s occasional offers of childish toys and entertainments.

When Mycroft leaves for Oxford, Sherlock is insufferable. She is unable to diminish his new loneliness, what with being no match for Mycroft and being so rarely at home.

When Mycroft returns home during his vacations, Sherlock reverts to a more unconfrontational state once more.

Considering the fact that she contributed one half of the life in those brilliant, brilliant brains of theirs, she cannot say how they seem of the opinion that she has not noticed. And they are _so_ careless: Sherlock, of course, never had much mind for laws or social convention, but Mycroft revels in ostensibly obeying them. Perhaps Sherlock makes Mycroft momentarilly forget himself.

She sees them as they really are, once.

Mycroft is twenty-six, quickly rising through the civil service payscale, and Sherlock is nineteen, at Cambridge at last, both of them home for Christmas like little boys because she had insisted. The nursery door isn’t quite closed. Wearing an unbuttoned shirt and unfastened trousers, leaning up against the dappled flanks of their childhood rocking horse, Sherlock is watching Mycroft all sharp and coy from under his eyelashes, slight frown giving him a touch of youngest sibling petulance, discovering and exploiting how easily and completely sex can lead to power and finding no-one as willing to be held in high regard for the sake of vanity as his brother is. Mycroft, still fully clothed, has his back to her, but she sees the way his fingers twitch, and then how one thumb is pressed against Sherlock’s bright lips, the other hand, lower, reaching forward.

The dry, retching sound of shock that comes from her throat makes Sherlock look up.

“M-; M-” she hears Sherlock stutter breathily as she darts down the hallway towards somewhere far away from here, and she has no way of telling whether he is responding to Mycroft’s touch or warning of her presence.

The next day, she tells Mycroft that she will arrange a transfer of the deeds to the house by phone, and moves in permanently with her lover in town. The house is her sons’ to look after now – she was never given enough credit; does anyone think it’s easy to run a small estate, pay off the housekeeper, reject the advances of the aging gardner, all on one’s own? They deserve it, all of it, from the broken guttering to the mould in the scullery. All theirs to _enjoy_ , if they can. Theirs to defile.

She would have been a better mother, she is sure, if they hadn’t gone and made themselves so difficult to understand.


End file.
